The author and director of Squid Sport says he is turn into numb to the hyperviolence depicted within the present and would not get pleasure from watching its graphic scenes.
The primary season of Hwang Dong-hyuk’s dystopian South Korean drama was a lockdown phenomenon, turning into the most-watched sequence launch in Netflix historical past.
The 53-year-old filmmaker went on to make Emmy historical past as the primary Asian to win excellent directing for a drama sequence.
Hwang Dong-hyuk on the set of Squid Sport season one. Pic: Netflix
Now, with the second season simply weeks away, Hwang tells Sky Information: “For a few of the scenes, like the place they’re harvesting organs within the first season, I believe if I wasn’t the one creating it, I’d most likely cowl my eyes too.
“However as a creator, I’ve to visualise what I’ve created and written. I assume in a way I’ve turn into just a little numb to that, however I can say as an individual, I am not the sort who can watch these very graphic scenes simply.”
Initially written as a movie script in 2008, Squid Sport was turned down by a number of South Korean studios, earlier than being picked up by Netflix a decade later as a part of its drive to broaden international programming.
It was a clever name for the streamer, which now has 120 authentic Korean sequence and movies below its belt.
The drama’s juxtaposition of harmless childhood video games with brutal bloodshed and dying on a mass scale has proved each efficient and controversial in equal measure.
When the primary season got here out in 2021, some faculties warned mother and father to not let their youngsters watch it after experiences of re-enactments in playgrounds resulting in harm and upset.
The primary season of Squid Sport was a world hit. Pic: Netflix
‘Much less violent than true crime’
Hwang himself has beforehand made clear that Squid Sport was not made for kids (within the UK, each seasons are rated 15, whereas in Korea they’re rated 19 and above) and has explicitly suggested in opposition to youngsters watching it.
Bringing Korean video games together with Crimson Mild, Inexperienced Mild, and the titular Squid Sport to the eye of the world, it is probably the following season – which picks up three years after Participant 456’s victory – will introduce quite a few new methods to cull its contestants.
Hwang says: “The violence depicted on this sequence is extra allegorical, I attempt to depict society’s violent methods of treating the losers of competitors, not it being bodily violence, however the best way they drive them to the underside of society, forcing them into poverty…
“These which are eradicated, so to talk, or those who lose the competitors, they’re headed for a life in ache, and I attempted to specific that.”
And he insists the present is much less violent than true crime – a style that exploded in recognition over lockdown too, and one other by which Netflix significantly excels.
“I created this sequence eager to symbolize that as immediate dying, as a result of it is within the type of a recreation. I virtually assume it is much less violent than a few of the violence depicted in different types of content material, like true crime-based sequence.”
Season two sees Participant 456 re-enter the sport. Pic: Netflix
‘I am higher off than earlier than’
With a give attention to wealth and social standing, the present places an actual worth on human life – 100 million South Korean gained (£55.6m) is added to the prize pot following the dying of every contestant, with a possible grand prize of 45.6bn South Korean gained (£25.4bn) on the climax of the video games.
In the meantime, Squid Sport has earned Netflix a whole lot of thousands and thousands of kilos – main Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos to allude to a future “Squid Sport universe”.
Earlier this yr, the streamer launched a game show adaptation, Squid Sport: The Problem providing the biggest single money prize ever in a tv present (a $4.56m/£3.64m jackpot), and there are whispers of an English-language TV sequence within the works too.
However Hwang brushes off the suggestion the success of the present might need made him as rich because the super-rich he satirizes.
“I could also be higher off than earlier than, however I do not assume it’s going to convey me to that degree of affect or wealth,” he says.
Whereas Hwang is probably not shopping for his personal jet planes and yachts fairly but, he hopes his takedown of those that misuse their excessive monetary or political powers will create a legacy of its personal.
As his Squid Sport universe continues to broaden, Hwang says: “I’d like to be remembered as somebody who gave meals for thought, who created a chance for individuals to have extra significant conversations about such issues”.
Squid Sport season two is streaming on Netflix from Boxing Day, with the third and ultimate season out subsequent yr.
